Bitfury created the first-ever blockchain land-registry system in partnership with the Republic of Georgia’s National Agency of Public Registry (NAPR) and renowned economist Hernando de Soto.
First launched in 2016, the goal of the project was to strengthen property owners’ rights, enhance citizens’ trust in government and reinforce data security.
Blockchain is the best solution for a more secure, efficient land-titling system. Thanks to blockchain’s inherent immutability, citizens know their records are safe and that their ownership rights cannot be unfairly contested.
The digital property registration process in Georgia (already ranked globally by the World Bank) was kept intact, with an Exonum blockchain timestamping service added to the process.
All processes on the blockchain can be easily audited both in real time and retrospectively, which is important for registries.
By integrating Exonum’s timestamping feature into their land-title registry, NAPR was able to provide Georgian citizens with digital certificates of their assets supported with a cryptographic proof (known as a hash). This hash was published to the Bitcoin Blockchain. This enabled the owner of the document to prove their legitimate ownership of the property by showing their timestamp. No one can alter the timestamp on the Bitcoin Blockchain, including NAPR.
Integrating this layer meant that information about a property title could not be altered, and that any attempted tampering would be equivalent to tampering with the Bitcoin Blockchain (making it publicly visible to everyone on the Bitcoin network).